Rikoteki na yume
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: [Complete] [Tokyo Babylon] The makings of a Sakurazukamori... (made for Seishirou's birthday.)
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: Tokyo Babylon, X, and Octavo Dia aren't mine.  
  
"Mientras tanto este mundo gira y gira  
  
Sin poderlo detener  
  
Y aqui abajo unos cuantos nos manejan  
  
Como fichas de ajedrez  
  
No soy la clase de idiota  
  
Que se deja convencer  
  
Pero digo la verdad  
  
Y hasta un ciego lo puede ver"  
  
Rikoteki na yume. (Selfish dream.)  
  
By miyamoto yui  
  
Prologue - futsuu no sekai. (an ordinary world.)  
  
There comes a time in everyone's life when things aren't black and white. Actually, everything should be that way, but that's beside the point.  
  
No matter how shrewd a mind you may have, it is likely to kill you in the end because it becomes more confused than in the beginning. It's like being Hamlet in the 1990's. Trying to get through the everyday bustle while not trying to be overtaken by your family, your career, politics, or even the air around you.  
  
You feel so clustered inside.  
  
But everyone still walks on. People go about their business not paying attention to anyone or anything around them, as if their surroundings don't affect them. How ironic that the most minute details affect the way you are for the rest of your life.  
  
The newspaper in one boy's hands is left in the trashcan. He didn't really care if it was really stuffed into the bin or that some recycling system was going to be started in the future.  
  
What mattered was that he was finished with the dealings of the world printed on little letters, smudged and wasted by passing time.   
  
He walked on with his hands in his pockets.  
  
The handsome youth ran his right hand through his hair and put it back into his pocket once more. Meandering was a hobby he indulged in, but he was a vampire with a wonderful face.  
  
The devil was an angel once, did you know?  
  
And maybe around the evening, that angel fell and broke his wings. Maybe this boy is his heir? We will never know, but we have a hint of that being so.  
  
Not everything is seen with the blind eye, but some things can be seen with the mind's doubt.  
  
The high school boy wandered into the beautiful park. It was around late March or early April. All the days were the same to him, but he could only tell time when those sakura trees bloomed and when they died in the same year.  
  
The sun was setting as he sat on a bench. Unfortunately, he got restless as he watched each of the petals carried by the wind.   
  
Falling, falling, they were like blood drops.  
  
It made his hunger all the more unbearable.  
  
Sakura called his blood. Sakura reminded him of the sweet scent of his mother's hair. How ironic that she who embodied the sakura was so in love with the camellia.  
  
The human trait to want to become something you weren't. It would never change.  
  
The boy got up and jumped onto the branch of a tree. Playfully, he sat on it, waiting for someone to amuse him.  
  
People were walking by. A couple with a newborn baby. Some kids with his own school uniform. A beautiful woman who looked like his teacher. A tall business man with a briefcase.  
  
After half an hour, a little girl.  
  
A little girl with a dress that had a ribbon tied in the middle. Her hair was blond and her eyes were so innocent and wide.  
  
"Okaa-san..." he found himself whispering to himself.  
  
Did any girl do? No. That wasn't true. They had to have that look.  
  
The one where he would melt and feel superior at the same time.  
  
His hand twitched as he leaned forward as if he was going to capture her from where he was sitting.  
  
The little girl noticed him. Or rather, she heard his voice.  
  
In a strange moment, the girl was unfazed. She found herself knowingly looking up at the boy sitting on the branch of a cherry blossom tree.  
  
The girl didn't say anything. Normal little girls would have questioned how he got up there, but she was just calm about finding him there. In fact, she found it kind of cool.  
  
"Yes," he thought to himself. "You've reincarnated so quickly, Okaa-san, haven't you? You couldn't leave me alone."  
  
He jumped down from the branch and the girl just took a step back, without moving her eyes away from the boy. She put her hands behind her and folded them.  
  
"Hi," the boy said with a smile as he looked down at the little girl.  
  
"Hello," the little girl answered back, still not scared. Still with those eyes that were knowing and innocent at the same time.  
  
"Would you like to play a game with me?"   
  
She nodded her head and smiled with something that suggested she was a little girl anymore. The little girl was hiding a secret. "Let's play hide and seek," she insisted.  
  
"All right."   
  
Seishirou wasn't fazed by her running feet. In fact, he was listening to the sound of her footsteps. "Thirty-four...thirty-five...thirty-six."  
  
He opened his eyes and the girl waited for him behind one of the trees of the wide lane. She was stepping backwards as he came from behind her, but as she began to run away, he shot in front of her, smirked and rammed his hand into the girl's heart.   
  
"Tag, you're it!" he shouted triumphantly.  
  
The girl opened her eyes in shock, but not in horror.  
  
It was as if she expected it to happen.  
  
In fact, she pushed herself forward to feel his arm through her. This surprised the boy slightly as he looked at the girl. The girl painfully took a breath and touched the boy's cheek. "Nii-chan...thank you for playing with me..."  
  
"The one that you love the best isn't me," the woman's voice echoed in his ears as he looked into the eyes of the little girl who was smiling and her hand dropping from his cheek.  
  
He wrapped his other arm around her. His other hand patted some of her own blood onto her hair.   
  
"If only your hair was as raven as deep red blood," he whispered into her ear.  
  
But, he kept on embracing the little girl. He even brought her up to the branch and cradled her in his arms. "Okaa-san..."  
  
Drip, drip...  
  
The blood fell to the ground.  
  
But this time, there was a little boy below him. A boy who looked up at him from the branch.   
  
The blood had plopped onto his face.  
  
In horror, the boy was about to say something, but the boy jumped down and put the little girl down so that the sakura would eat her. And then, he put the little boy to sleep.  
  
"Beg for your life," he thought to himself. "I'll kill you anyway, but I want to see you writhe in pain before you die."  
  
"Things are the most beautiful when they feel the ultimate pain. At their last breath, they leave the most wonderful pictures in my mind," he whispered to himself.  
  
At that, he tricked the little boy into waking up. He even told him a myth as to why cherry blossoms were red in the first place.  
  
But the boy couldn't understand the beauty of death.  
  
Instead, he sympathized with the pathetic humans. The teenage boy wondered how stupid the little boy was for thinking that.  
  
That was why he blinked his eyes.  
  
Didn't everyone work out of his own selfishness? Love didn't make the world go 'round. It was an illusion that was equal to obsessive hate.  
  
That's why he had made the ridiculous bet. Sure, after they met again, he could be changed to think out of his own thinking construct.   
  
But there was something threatening in the sincerity of that boy's eyes. The boy whose memories of the little girl he had just erased.  
  
His eyes were too bright. They were too trusting of the world and he knew that it would eventually be his downfall.  
  
"But...wouldn't it be great if I could be his teacher?" the teenager thought.   
  
At that wonderful thought, he put the little boy to sleep and etched his mark onto his soft, soft hands.  
  
Ah, the taste of this little boy's skin was wonderful. So full of life it almost made him sick.  
  
He looked at the lips of the little boy.   
  
Were they as sweet as his mother's? Couldn't he have just a little taste?  
  
But why would he want to kiss this strangely dressed onmyouji boy in the first place? Wiping a bit of the boy's own blood onto the lips, the teenager kissed the little boy in his arms.  
  
Closing his eyes for a moment, he felt an ecstasy that went beyond his own logic and reasoning. He licked his lips and tried to kiss the little boy again.  
  
The boy was wonderful and his blood was just as exquisite as he wanted.  
  
Maybe he shouldn't have marked him after all. It would have been just better to find the boy again by kissing him.  
  
The teen smirked to himself.  
  
As the boy woke up, he bowed again for helping him again after fainting.   
  
But, instead of leaving out of embarrassment, the little green-eyed boy touched the teen's face with his hands. He normally wouldn't have done this, but they had made a bet, hadn't they? He wanted to remember those amber eyes.  
  
It was then that the teenage boy was taken back.  
  
Everyone that had ever looked at him always complimented him, but out of fear, they never touched him. And here, the boy he had marked touched him voluntarily. Out of innocence and naivete, the little boy reached out for him.  
  
In a split-second, he saw an image of someone through this boy's eyes. Someone who would kill him the same way he killed his mother.  
  
The teen wasn't so calm anymore. He took a deep breath as the little boy saw the change in his reaction. Blushing, he took a step back, bowed his head and ran away.  
  
In that moment, the teenage boy with his school uniform was disappointed.  
  
You couldn't erase instinct. When humans sense danger, they run away.  
  
He was the embodiment of danger, so how could anyone want to touch him?  
  
Only the boy had.  
  
"Stupid, stupid boy..." he mumbled to himself as he pushed a pile of sakura petals over the little girl's body.  
  
Walking away, he smiled to himself.  
  
The little boy actually understood death more than he realized in his first glance. No one could be an onmyouji user and not become detached from the world in some way.  
  
You just couldn't.  
  
People were selfish in that way. They blame others for their own mistakes and wash their hurt with more, as if to erase what they already feel.  
  
That's what that little boy's eyes knew and he shared that thought with the teenage boy with that single, intense glance.  
  
The teen knew that if he hadn't let the little boy go when he did, he would have kissed him all over again. Keep him at his home as his slave to the point of obsession, never seeing light again.  
  
Yes, he should have done that.  
  
"Damn..." he told himself.  
  
Heading to a house opposite from the direction of his own, he shook his head and sighed. "But maybe this was more interesting."  
  
He licked his lips again and touched his lips with his finger, still with tints of the boy's blood upon them. "I will feast on your soul, your mind, and your body. Even the air around you won't be yours anymore."  
  
In a lost desparation and deep obsession, he said,   
  
"You have to be mine someday."  
  
Tsuzuku...  
  
--  
  
Author's note: No, I don't have any idea what the heck Shakira's singing. All I know is that I like the feel and I think it expresses what I want. This was actually the song that made me fall in love with her.  
  
Ooh...weirdo Sei-chan~! Hints of shouta, yes, I know I'm bad. But what kind of author am I if I don't push the limits or my own constraints?  
  
Thank you very much, Rei-chan for being my beta!  
  
And this is to you, wonderful Seishirou, as a humble present for your birthday! 


	2. Chapter 1

disclaimer: Yui doesn't own Tokyo Babylon or X. Nor does she own Honnou. That's awesome Shiina Ringo's!  
  
/"Doushite  
  
Rekishi no ue ni kotoba ga umareta no ka"/  
  
/Why?  
  
From above history, were words born?/  
  
Chapter 1 - Honnou  
  
She pushes the needle in. She takes the needle out.  
  
Mother seems to like it whenever she 'accidentally' pokes her finger. Then, she calls me to drink the blood.   
  
I know she loves me more when she does this because she always kisses me on the lips. This is our secret little game.  
  
Something she calls love.  
  
I go to the garden and run around with my imaginary friend, Sugita. He is my little brother and he follows me everywhere.  
  
I talk to him because Mother doesn't like it when I shout out like the other little kids. She thinks they're really loud and rude.  
  
I don't want to do anything that Mother doesn't like. She's scary when she smiles, like a Noh mask.  
  
She doesn't look like my Mother when she's that way.  
  
After she cooks dinner, we go out for a walk. Taking my hand, we walk through the city.   
  
She holds onto my hand very tightly, but she always looks like she's looking for something.  
  
"What are we looking for?" I always ask.  
  
This is another game we play.  
  
With a finger to my lips, she gives me a grin. "I don't know."  
  
But she knows.  
  
She _knows_. She is Mother, after all.  
  
One day, a man pushes past me as we are coming out of a karaoke place. I give him a mean look and point at him because he wants to grab my hand and take me away. "He hit me, Mother."  
  
Mother shakes her head and clicks her tongue. "He did?"  
  
I pout and nod my head.  
  
Mommy would know what to do...  
  
...if anyone.  
  
Normally, she would leave me to sit quietly alone for a couple of minutes, but this time, she took me with her. With a smile on her face, we walk fast.  
  
We see the man again, but he turns into a dark alley. Mother laughs and I look at her, my finger to my mouth.  
  
She lets go of my hand and takes the man's collar. "Whomever sent you, don't you _ever_ touch my son."  
  
I've never seen Mother so scary as when she put her hand into the man's chest. The man falls to the ground and Mother's beautiful kimono has blood all over it.  
  
But I'm not scared.  
  
I'm proud- I am Mother's boy, after all.  
  
Kneeling to me, she takes a part of her kimono sleeve and rubs it on my cheek. "I love you, Seishirou."  
  
"That's what love is?" I ask her while pointing at the dead man in front of us.  
  
"Yes. Anything that touches what is yours should be punished."  
  
I hug Mother and she takes me into her arms. While carrying me, she rubs my back while we walk down the dark alley.  
  
Blood and Mother's smell. They're the best!  
  
"Mother loves me..." I whisper into her ear playfully. My smile stretches ear to ear while I grab her kimono .  
  
"Yes, very much," she answers in her quiet way.  
  
Even when I grow older, we still play this game.   
  
Mother never grows old and she is always sewing. She waits until I come home from school to prick her herself.  
  
I still suck on her white fingers and she laughs while kissing me on the lips.  
  
I always like the way she laughs.  
  
She always acts like she doesn't know anything else, but she knows so many things.  
  
But I see her writing letters these days. She is writing to someone and she won't show me the notes. I get upset with her.  
  
She giggles while going into our garden and into the snow. "Oh, Seishirou-san, you are so childish."  
  
I smirk at her and shake my head while standing at the back door. "Who did you write that letter to, Mother?"  
  
"No one..." she answers while looking away from me in her coquettish ways.  
  
Then, she glances at me seductively.  
  
She has written to someone!  
  
"This won't ever do!" I tease, but inside of my heart, I feel a slight jealousy.  
  
Mother laughs even more and I take her shoulders. Looking into my eyes, she stares at me for the first time. She is looking deeply into me so seriously.  
  
But her smile remains while telling me that there is someone I would love more than her. And she won't be able to handle it...  
  
...well, that's what her eyes say.  
  
"While they're still looking at me so adoringly," her eyes tell me.  
  
I laugh off her accusation. How can that ever be true?  
  
I can't love anyone more than you!  
  
"But who did you write to?!" I shout through my body and into my fingers as I hold her. "Who did you write all those letters to?!"  
  
She tells me again, "I love you, Seishirou-san."  
  
That's not enough...  
  
At that moment, instinct takes over.  
  
And I kill Mother with my hand.  
  
Holding her in my arms, I smile while kissing her lips filled with blood.  
  
"Goodbye, Mother."  
  
No one is going to take what was mine.  
  
No one is going to take you away from me.  
  
Not even you, Mother.  
  
Blood seeps into the white, white snow making the spot as beautiful as falling sakura petals when they die.  
  
I look at the envelopes to find they are all addressed to me.  
  
Until the end, she is playing a game with me.  
  
We are trying to see who loves the other more.  
  
Shaking my head, I laugh out of spite and reverie.   
  
"Selfish Mother. Dying in my arms like that..."  
  
Was something taking you away from me? Something that you couldn't even fight against?  
  
Maybe...  
  
Maybe it was herself.  
  
Her woman's urges versus...  
  
...her mother instinct.  
  
Tsuzuku...  
  
--  
  
Author's note: I wanted to keep the essence of Setsuka and take yet another perspective to the relationship she and Seishirou had. I have done two other fics with them, but I wanted to emphasize more on her alluring strangeness that had transported into Seishirou and poisoned him through this illusion called 'cruel love' and 'human instinct'. 


	3. Chapter 2

disclaimer: Yui doesn't own anything from Tokyo Babylon to Soseki-sensei's works to Koi da Panikku to Tanizaki-sensei's works. I only own my original character Kurosawa Ian and the [rather not-so-good] translation below.  
  
"Uketomete hoshii no yo Kiss wo  
  
Yume no naka de ii  
  
Dakishimete hoshii no ni watashi...  
  
Uketomete agetai no Kiss wo  
  
Ai ga afuredasu  
  
Dakishimete agetakute watashi  
  
Motto yasashiku suru"  
  
/Wanting to reach out, The kiss...  
  
It is good [only] in a dream.  
  
Even though, I want to hold you in my arms...  
  
I want to reach out and give [for that] kiss  
  
Love overflows  
  
I give my arms to hold  
  
Always so gently./  
  
Rikoteki na yume  
  
by miyamoto yui  
  
Chapter 2 - ningen dake. (only human.)  
  
The sixteen-year-old boy, like all high school students, had a project to do so he was going to the library. He wanted to do some kind of term paper just to impress everyone because that was just how he was. It was a school requirement, but he sure as hell didn't know what to do. Who cared if he wrote a research paper on the set of femme fatales of Tanizaki-sensei? That was probably the only topic that gave him any interest.  
  
He continued to look at the stacks for a set of books to read. He had already read more than half of the works, but he couldn't seem to find one that fascinated him. Not that that was an easy task in itself, for he never held his attention on any one person or thing for too long.  
  
And it wasn't because he was sixteen.  
  
"Oh my..." someone gasped. Probably she didn't even know she had commented aloud, but it broke Seishirou's concentration on the book "Some Prefer Nettles".  
  
As he was looking through the stacks of literature books, there was a teacher sitting on the ground with a book in her hands. Like a teenager, she put her knees together as if squishing herself into a ball, then read her book with no care for the rest of the world.  
  
"Good afternoon, Kurosawa-sensei."  
  
Blinking at the sound of her name, she lifted her head and closed her eyes, smiling at him. "Oh, hello, Sakurazuka-kun."  
  
Funny. They weren't supposed to know one another...  
  
He smiled as he nodded his head. Holding his hand out to pull a book, he looked down at the text before his teacher. "Isn't that 'Naomi' by Tanizaki-sensei?"  
  
Looking at him curiously, she was surprised. "Why yes..."  
  
"Are you enjoying the book, Sensei?" he said as he pulled the book he needed from the shelf.   
  
Ah, what an apple-polisher!  
  
She nodded her head. "It's very interesting."  
  
Trying to be friendly, he tried to make conversation with her. "I like the plot twist."  
  
"Which one?" Kurosawa-sensei looked at him curiously.  
  
"Naomi isn't what her husband thought she was."  
  
"Why should that interest you, Sakurazuka-kun?" She got up and dusted off her skirt. Tilting her head with an unreadable smile, she said, "It's not an uncommon thing, is it?"  
  
At that, she pushed up her glasses. She then nodded her head and left with Seishirou raising his eyebrow as he looked on after her. "So the innocent looking teacher isn't so naïve after all..."  
  
With that, he smiled to himself and resumed looking for a Tanizaki book.  
  
He also remembered that particular teacher's face even more.  
  
"Naomi, is it?" he mumbled to himself with a smirk. "I've found my book."  
  
--  
  
Two years later...  
  
She was a wonderful set of picturesque oddities. That was the only way he could describe her.  
  
Her brown eyes were so wide and her glasses made her look even more intelligent.  
  
The long skirt she wore today contrasted with the white poet's shirt she had on. She didn't look out of place, but rather, it was the classroom that suffered from her presence.  
  
As friendly as she was, she always carried something to read. Sometimes it was manga, and sometimes it was a journal article. More often than not, every other book seemed to be Soseki Natsume and Tanizaki Junichirou-sensei's.  
  
When she finally became his homeroom teacher, he didn't have to go spying on her anymore. As much as he hated to admit it, he would actually watch her as he passed by her classroom, at assemblies when she stood up at the front, or from the school roof when she exited the school entrance.  
  
Kurosawa Ian thought it was quite funny for one of her students to have such a crush on her. She never told anyone and that was just fine with her.  
  
The staff dismissed her behavior in class either because she was too much or that she was the way she was. There was no other way to say it.  
  
Seishirou admired that about her. She always pushed the boundaries and she did it so sweetly.  
  
It was the last period of the day and Kurosawa-sensei remained in the classroom. Even though she should have been correcting papers, she was laughing with a doujinshi in her hands.  
  
This shouldn't have been brought to class anyway, but she was the same teacher who winked and let you have five minutes of socializing time. It was called 'English conversation' because you could talk about anything as long as it was said in English.   
  
The administration normally would have gotten upset if it weren't for the fact that she kept the best record for student testing. No one could argue as long as she did her job, right?  
  
One of Japan's mottos: Do your job and you do it right. Without mercy. There's no room for it.  
  
But what happened when you mixed your job and your life, though?  
  
Actually, Seishirou associated this motto with her instead because she was the one who said that while they were discussing something about Mishima Yukio's 'Patriotism'.  
  
Opposite to her energetic nature, however, a cruel being resided also. If you did something that Kurosawa-sensei deemed unfair, you were in for a good lecture that would make your ear fall off.  
  
It all balanced out.  
  
Seishirou loved it more when she got mad. It was just his perverseness for cruelty that made him so amused and smitten with her. It was like the time that he had played a joke on someone and she never suspected it was him. Instead, someone else paid for his joke.  
  
But here she was in front of him as he fixed his belongings. Everyone ran out, but he purposely made himself slow in order to watch Kurosawa-sensei and ask her a question.  
  
She laughed.  
  
And as much as Seishirou was concentrating to ask her a question, some part of him became relaxed because of her laughter. It almost made him forget what he was going to ask, actually.  
  
It was because she sounded like a little girl being tickled. Seishirou looked up from his desk and smiled at her.  
  
Realizing she was a bit loud, Kurosawa-sensei looked up and saw Seishirou standing in front of her. She blinked at him. "Yes?"  
  
"I wanted to ask you a question, Sensei," Seishirou said as his hands became a bit sweaty.  
  
Why the hell was he acting like this in the first place?  
  
There was something so intimidating about that woman with the beautiful smiling face.  
  
"Yes?" She looked at him and encouraged him to just say what was on his mind.  
  
"Would you mind discussing helping me with my final paper for this class?" He looked at her with the best innocent look that he could. It was damn hard, but he pulled it off.  
  
"Sure, no problem," she answered him. "When do you want to meet? Want to start today?"  
  
"All right," Seishirou said. He cleared his throat as she began to pack her things. He couldn't tell who was older at the rate they were going.  
  
"I'm really thirsty, so let's go to a café to discuss this." Then, she stopped packing and looked at him. "Do you mind? Or is it too dorky to go out with your own teacher? Some people are offended by things like that."  
  
Here was the teacher that seemed so confident in class and pushed the constraints put upon her. And she was asking _him_ if he was uncomfortable? With a hand over his mouth, he couldn't help but chuckle at her.  
  
"What are you laughing about?"  
  
Her manner was so friendly that he couldn't help but feel like he had been sucked into a trap.  
  
He had.  
  
And he was so willing a victim for her...  
  
The scary thing was that she didn't even know it either...  
  
They went into a café downtown and she ordered an iced cappuccino while he got a coke. Kurosawa-sensei smiled at him as she said, "It's so great to see some people who still love to read Tanizaki-sensei."  
  
"Why do you say that?" he said as he looked at her while sipping his drink.  
  
"It's because everyone is so into reading junk." She sighed as she looked out the window. "There's no substance anymore."  
  
Seishirou looked at her profile and wondered if her childish face and mannerisms reminded him of his own mother. In a way, yes, but there was something very charming about her.  
  
A very strange charm that even he couldn't understand.  
  
"Anyway," she said as she looked back at him. "Why do you like to read him?"  
  
He looked at her carefully and without discretion, his eyes didn't stray away as he said, "The obsessive nature of each of his characters. Whether it has to do with becoming Western, love, or something else, I like the way he always manages to suck the reader into liking his perversity."  
  
Kurosawa-sensei wasn't at all offended by his directness. Actually, that was the moment that made him so fond to her. She nodded her head. "Such a deep answer for one so young."  
  
"Why do you read his works, Sensei? Don't you get tired of his formula?" Now, it was Seishirou's turn to ask the questions.  
  
She shook her head as she returned his gaze. "Tanizaki-sensei may use the same format, but he always has a different perspective. I love him not only by the way he characterizes obsession but also by the way it drives itself as if it were a separate entity. People are moved by their weaknesses, not their strengths- isn't that strange?"  
  
It was as if she was talking about him rather than the book, but Seishirou couldn't distinguish which was which. She seemed too...too...too sincere.  
  
It was all too passionate.  
  
How could she smile so much from just answering a question?  
  
He had to find out...  
  
He had to figure it out or else it would drive him mad...  
  
And from then on, Seishirou went out with his Sensei to that café to discuss about literature books. Their conversations started out as calm and collected, but gradually, they became heated. They even caused a stir sometimes, and Seishirou wondered how could this woman provoke this much out of him.  
  
Even his own mother never made him feel so much...  
  
"'Kokoro' is about transition. The student wanted answers and the teacher gave them to him," Seishirou answered, feeling as if Kurosawa-sensei was truly probing him for answers that seemed so obvious. It irritated him.  
  
"But how about if you interpret that Sensei's attitude was more of trying to get 'I' from talking to him? All throughout the book, until the end, you see Sensei avoiding 'I'." Kurosawa-sensei looked at him with her wide, brown eyes, trying to find an answer through Seishirou's amber ones.  
  
"Then the student should have taken the hint and left the teacher alone. There wouldn't have been a book, though," he answered. Seishirou couldn't understand why the heck she was so persistent.  
  
It was as if it was a question that could open an answer for both of them...  
  
She shook her head. "You have totally missed what Soseki-sensei is trying to tell you, Sakurazuka-kun! He's trying to tell his audience that people put limitations upon themselves and their worlds. That's why the cycle repeated. The student didn't listen and therefore he is thought never to have transcended from his position in life."  
  
"I can interpret this any way I want!" Seishirou found himself shouting as he got up from the booth, slamming his hand on the table. He was ashamed at his childishness.  
  
"Yes, you can. That's correct, but you're missing one thing, Sakurazuka-kun!" She got up and looked at him defiantly in the eyes. "Why is it called Kokoro? What does your heart tell you this book means, Sakurazuka-kun?! You can give me all the mechanical answers you want, but tell me what you feel!"  
  
At that moment, he gave a deep sigh. With thin lips, he found himself bowing before her and leaving the café as quickly as he could.   
  
But he couldn't get away.  
  
She ran to catch up with him.  
  
He just walked away even quicker.  
  
For the first time in his life, he felt himself trembling with anger and frustration. She had hit an invisible chord within him.   
  
"What does your heart tell you this book means, Sakurazuka-kun?!" her voice repeated inside of his head.  
  
He didn't know.  
  
Then, he stopped walking and they were all alone in a park. It wasn't even well lit from where they stood. Kurosawa-sensei stood a few feet behind him panting.   
  
But that didn't stop her. She walked in front of him and looked into his eyes, hers on fire.  
  
"So passionate..." he thought to himself as he looked down at her. "...how can you be so passionate over a single book? What do you want from me?"  
  
"Why did you run away from me?!" she asked harshly as her wrath began to enwrap both of them.  
  
"..." He didn't answer.  
  
For the first time in his life, he was speechless. He couldn't come up with an answer.  
  
This had hit an area that he didn't know: His own heart.  
  
He was totally blank.  
  
He looked away from her.  
  
Always pushing through people's comfort zones, she reached out for his face to look at her. Letting go, she blinked at him and gave him a concerned look. With a soft voice, as though she was starting to understand him, she said, "You don't have to answer me."  
  
Someone...understand...him?  
  
Was this weakness?  
  
He became more frustrated.  
  
"I just want an honest answer," she told him.  
  
It was then that he said, "I don't know."  
  
With that answer, Seishirou felt a little helpless. He felt as if he was the one bleeding and she was the one who was killing him.  
  
Smiling at him, she nodded her head as she poked the area around his heart. "That's what you need to find out. Why is there a blank when it comes to your heart, Sakurazuka-kun?"  
  
At that moment, he leaned forward, giving himself to human weakness.  
  
"Such an interesting woman..." he thought to himself.  
  
He kissed her.  
  
She held her breath and took a step back, away from him.  
  
Why didn't it feel wrong?  
  
His mother would have been so mad at him for letting someone else touch his lips...  
  
Kurosawa-sensei gave him a smile. "That was the most honest answer you have given me in all the weeks we've been talking about books."  
  
It was then he understood why he admired her so much and why she scared him, despite her short stature. She was open about her heart.  
  
And with this honesty, people around her were afraid.  
  
Society promoted you to be your own individual, but made you conform to it. Everything was a bunch of convoluted lies painted with bright, promising colors.  
  
But not her.  
  
She knew the difference.  
  
Kurosawa Ian countered it.  
  
It reminded him of his prey...  
  
And in that instant, she turned around with a firm look in her eyes. "Never talk to me again, Sakurazuka-kun."  
  
At that, he heard the tapping of her footsteps as she walked away from him.  
  
He stood there watching her without a word.  
  
Seishirou, in all the years of his life, was afraid of his comfortable numbness decaying because of that woman's touch. A barrier his mother had done so well to build and he had given much effort to preserve it.  
  
--  
  
He kept his promise, but as soon as he graduated high school, the first thing he did was show up at her front step. She had been expecting him and somehow, he wasn't fazed.  
  
Later, he found out she had slight premonition abilities. To say the least.  
  
"I cannot say that I am pleased to see you, Sakurazuka-kun," Kurosawa-sensei said as she prepared tea for him and herself.  
  
In all the literature classes, he watched her carefully, and she didn't cower. Whatever was outside of that classroom was left outside. They were good at acting like that.  
  
Now, he slightly understood that, while trying to understand himself in the process.  
  
Wanting to hold onto being numb...  
  
...especially since now his mother was gone...  
  
"Why did you come here?" she asked rudely, turning to him.   
  
"When one runs, the other chases. Isn't that what Tanizaki-sensei always teaches?" He got up from his seat and walked over to her. "_That_ is human nature."  
  
She watched him as he came closer to her.  
  
"Guilt can kill you, Soseki-sensei has said," she retorted. "Unless you resolve yourself, you can't expect to move on in life."  
  
"Then let me resolve this..." Seishirou said as he reached out to hold her.  
  
Again, he wanted to kiss her, but she turned her face away.  
  
"You don't mean it." She pushed him away. "Have I taught you nothing this year?"  
  
But her eyes were different today. They were fighting against something other than himself.  
  
"Why are you still afraid of me, Seishirou-kun?"  
  
His eyes slightly opened wide at the sound of his name. At the gentle way she called him.  
  
"..."  
  
She clearly looked at him. "You will never learn about anything if you can't get out of your own personal boundaries."  
  
Why was this so hard? Because he was going against everything his mother ever taught him.   
  
Kill anything that stands in your way...  
  
You can't become strong until you've learned to become indifferent...  
  
Humans are weak because they can feel so much. If you control how you feel and your environment, then everything can be to your advantage.  
  
"That's why we kill people in the heart, Seishirou-san," his mother had told him when she explained what a Sakurazukamori was. "Show them the most beautiful thing in the world. You're the illusion of the sakura and you kill them from their root."  
  
Everything stems from there...  
  
Therefore you must kill the heart first.  
  
"Yes...kill the heart..." he mumbled to himself as he kissed her.  
  
He put everything into that kiss.  
  
From then on, he came back to visit her over and over again. As long as her sister was out, he would come to talk about literature once more.  
  
It was the only way to get to her.  
  
It was the only way he could 'feel' anything.  
  
Using the inanimate object of a book with her heart as the guide...  
  
It was on a temporary loan.  
  
When she found out she was pregnant, Seishirou, for a moment, thought of a dream. They stayed in her home for a whole day talking of books.   
  
He felt like a normal man. He was only twenty-years-old, but it was the first time he felt alive.  
  
As he tried to understand himself through her guidance, he separated himself into two spheres.  
  
The smiling college student who was a pre-med and the smirking, conniving assassin.  
  
When she left him that night, strangely, his strong girl was weak. Wrapping her arms around his waist from the back, she said, "I know."  
  
A jolt rammed inside of his heart.   
  
Shaking her head, she told him. "I know where you go and why. And there is no way I can stop it because it is in your blood."  
  
The blood began to drain from his hands.  
  
It was only she who could make him doubt so desparately.  
  
"But I don't care, Seishirou," she told him.  
  
"How can you not care?" he wanted to ask her because he didn't understand.  
  
"You'll understand someday," she told him as she let go. Kissing him goodbye, she smiled at him.  
  
"Promise me you'll understand someday."  
  
"How can I do that?" his silent look said to her.  
  
When he left, she left.  
  
Only when she gave birth to the their children did she appear before him.  
  
She never told him she was pregnant, though...  
  
At a cemetary, she called him out in the middle of the night. He wanted his questions answered, but he knew it was too late. Ian was gone for almost a year. Left without a trace or a word and even her sister swore herself to silence.  
  
Now, as she stood before him, with determined eyes, she stepped forward from a dead cherry-blossom tree. "Kill me, Seishirou."  
  
"What?" he asked her.  
  
He wanted questions answered. He wanted to see her, but she suddenly left him. And those were the first words she said to him?  
  
"I want to die in your hands..." she said to him. Her eyes narrowed. "...or you will die in mine."  
  
Flashes of his mother came to mind and his automatic mode wouldn't take over.  
  
"Why?" Seishirou asked her as she stepped closer towards him with her.  
  
"When I entered your high school, I was given the order to assassinate you."  
  
Seishirou didn't know what to think, but he gave her a suspicious look as she still kept her clear eyes on him. "Who ordered you?"  
  
"Myself."  
  
"Why, Ian?"  
  
"You were growing to be a threat...to the clan..." She didn't say anything more as to why or what though.  
  
It was then that she stepped closer to him and held onto his arms. "And then, before I knew it, I couldn't kill you anymore. You understood me, so I never questioned you about anything."  
  
"Ian..." Seishirou was at a loss for words.  
  
She knew of the clans?  
  
"You must kill me, Seishirou or else we will be chasing each other for the rest of our lives!"  
  
"You have to tell me why!"  
  
But if Seishirou was stubborn and mysterious, Ian was his equal. That's why he allowed himself to be taken in by her.  
  
He shook his head. He didn't want to believe what he was hearing. "You have to tell me what's going on."  
  
"There's no time, Seishirou..." At that moment, she held him. "I never questioned you. Please just trust in me..."  
  
He hesitated and she jerked in pain as she began to grab his clothing.  
  
"I can't..." he thought to himself. "I don't want to kill you, Ian."  
  
"Kill me, Seishirou..." she whispered into his ear, beginning to tremble with pain. "...because you love me."  
  
"I wouldn't mind being chased by you." He smirked, but her body was giving out on her.  
  
"The curse of my family lurks within me. My own body will kill me. I will go berserk because it has already invaded my mind." She shouted at him, "DO IT NOW, SEISHIROU!"   
  
A single 'no' screamed in the recesses of his mind.  
  
He became numb all over again.  
  
At that moment, he ran his hand through her heart. As she looked up at him, she kissed him.   
  
Taking out his hand, she reached up to tell him, "You understand. You've found yourself."  
  
Smiling, she closed her eyes as she said, "You found me too."  
  
Without warning, the unfeeling assassin found himself crying.  
  
There were no longer going to be beautiful smiles from her...  
  
Then, he thought about what she had told him once,   
  
"No matter how much you may hate yourself...  
  
No matter how many times you separate yourself into different parts or spheres...  
  
You are who you are.  
  
Your heart isn't as weak as the world may tell you.  
  
It's only you who makes it so.  
  
And because you have that choice,  
  
You can make it strong by accepting everything about yourself."  
  
She smiled at him as she said this, "But if you can't do that, I'll do it for you as long as I can. After all, you are only human, Seishirou."  
  
"Do you really believe that?" he had joked with Ian.  
  
But she gave him a serious look. "Of course I do. No matter what you do, Seishirou. You can only grow in my eyes, never decay."  
  
"Ian, why did you become a teacher?" Seishirou had asked her while she looked at him so softly.  
  
"To balance myself out."  
  
"What do you mean-"  
  
"Oh look! The cherry blossoms are so beautiful this year!" she said to avoid the subject.  
  
For that brief moment, in this small dream, he believed it.  
  
Just like when the boy touched him.  
  
He was human...  
  
...and she was too.   
  
No matter how they lived their lives.  
  
For a small while, he held her tightly in his arms, just like he had with his mother. But the silent tears wouldn't stop.   
  
With desperation, he questioned himself in a whisper, "But why? Why does it always mean you have to die?"  
  
Mother - You will be killed by the one you love the best...  
  
Ian - You can only live if you can see through the infirmities within your own heart...  
  
Seishirou buried Ian under the sakura tree with his own hands while thinking of her voice sounding sweet and melancholic as she said,   
  
"Your heart is made of glass. You have to break it in order to learn to truly live. Through these fragile pieces, you can see so many different things.  
  
You are nothing if they are in separate pieces, but...  
  
...you can be anything if you place them together."  
  
The woman who looked so sure of herself...  
  
...and he who thought he knew who he was...  
  
...found himself.  
  
That's what the heart was.  
  
You believed in your fragile, yet collapsible illusions called beliefs and dreams.  
  
It wasn't that you didn't see the obstacles in your way.  
  
You had to pretend they weren't there at all.  
  
Turning around, he left without looking back.  
  
Proudly splattered with her blood.  
  
Tsuzuku...  
  
--  
  
Author's note: Maybe I should have used a L'arc En Ciel song as I had originally planned. It just happened that this was the only one not Laraku related. I chose this song because it is my favorite anime song. The first one I learned Japanese with and it is Ranma. All my favorite Ranma songs carry a bittersweetness that is beyond compare. They're beautiful songs, but they're so complicated. I loved this   
  
particular song so much because it described me in a nutshell. There was just no other way for me to say it.  
  
And so, I transferred these thoughts into the relationship of Seishirou and his teacher. I wanted to convey a character that was both mysterious yet beautiful. She had to be worthy of Seishirou's affections, but just as importantly, she had to be strong and convincing enough to cause some sort of change within him.   
  
At this age and at this time, Seishirou is still trying to solidify how he is in other's eyes, how he is inside of himself, and how his secretive side comes out slightly into the light. Because this is the middle of the story and one of its focal points, I wanted him to meet an equal.  
  
I had intended for this to be a one-shoter one and a half years ago. It was actually supposed to come out with You Drive Me Crazy as a side-story, but I now understand that it wasn't the right time and now it is. I've thought long and hard about this. An hour went in just for an outline and trying to figure out how to properly execute a transitional period for our favorite sexy assassin.  
  
Gosh, this was so hard to write...took me hours and hours... 


	4. Chapter 3

disclaimer: Tokyo Babylon and X aren't mine. 'Come Undone' is by Duran Duran. However, Haruka Akira is mine.  
  
"Words playing me dejavu   
  
Like a radio tune I swear I've heard before  
  
Chills - is it something real?  
  
Or the magic I'm feeding off your fingers  
  
Can't ever keep from falling apart at the seams  
  
Can't I believe you're taking my heart to pieces  
  
Lost in a snow filled sky we'll make it alright to come undone now  
  
We'll try to stay blind to the hope and fear outside  
  
Hey child, stay wilder than the wind and blow me in to cry  
  
Who do you need?  
  
Who do you love?   
  
When you come undone..."  
  
rikoteki na yume  
  
by miyamoto yui  
  
Chapter 3 - the red sea illusion  
  
You have six days, Seishirou...  
  
"Haruka Akira - Youngest council man elected! Is there no end to his winning streak?" one of the newspaper headlines read.  
  
I looked at it and shook my head. "Jealous bastards. That's why they want him out."  
  
Crumpling the paper and letting it fly in the wind, I blinked my eyes indifferently. "Well, I don't care either way."  
  
It was of no concern to me anyway. I just had to 'eliminate' their obstacle and that was that. Mother had done this line of work, so it was no surprise that the best thing I could do was to continue it as well.  
  
It was the only way that I could remind myself of her.  
  
I felt her presence whenever I killed someone...  
  
I looked at the thin file my clients had given me, those old geezers who didn't want to relinquish their cushy seats in office. It was so pathetic I forgot to laugh in their faces.  
  
I didn't even smirk when I took the file from then. I just lifted my hand and said, "Just don't interfere."  
  
They wouldn't though.  
  
I, after all, didn't have any ties to anyone or anything. Being the only one of my clan, I was alone. And besides, my infamous indifference made them very afraid of me.  
  
I could kill without blinking.  
  
Without feeling.  
  
I was perfect...  
  
Mother and Ian had made me almost complete and incomplete that way...  
  
He was coming out of a conference and turning a dark corner. In that moment, I came out of my own corner and walked past him. By twenty-one-years of age, everything was a game now.  
  
It was only a matter of time.  
  
A time clock somewhere was detonating away on someone's life. And today, it was I who took care of it for this particular person.  
  
Haruka-san smirked at me as he brushed past me. Putting a business card into my hand as he bumped into me, he walked into to his hotel.  
  
I wondered if he was onto me. And I was kind of insulted that he had probably mistaken me for a teenage prostitute.  
  
I went to the hotel room that night and knocked on his door.  
  
He opened it and let me in.   
  
But it wasn't anything that I expected at all.  
  
He offered me a cup of coffee and he sat on the couch. I sat in a chair while leaning my elbows on the dining table.  
  
"Why did you call me here?" I asked as I put the cup down.  
  
"I don't know." He looked at me with a lost look in his face. Carefully looking at me, he said, "I have a weakness for beautiful things."  
  
I cleared my throat and drank more coffee.  
  
"How much will it be if I buy you for your time?" he asked me as he drank more of his coffee. "What is your name, by the way?"  
  
I laughed. I wasn't doing it to be a jerk, but I thought that his seductiveness and innocence contrasted greatly within the same being. It seemed like these two traits shouldn't have been born into such a man.  
  
"Matsui Seki." I simply said. "And just to note, I'm very expensive."  
  
He could have taken my comment in any way he wanted because I found myself looking into his eyes. There was something very alluring about them.  
  
"Just call me Akira."  
  
So cool...  
  
How childish my thoughts were.  
  
He got up and put his hand on my head to mess up my hair.  
  
"What?" I said with a surprised tone.  
  
Leaning forward, we looked at each other. Then, like a high school boy, this thirty-two-year-old man stole a kiss from my forehead. "Yes, you are quite beautiful."  
  
Pathetically, I found myself turning scarlet for his amusement. He laughed at me as he took out a Go board from his closet. "Know how to play?"  
  
I began to laugh. I laughed until my stomach hurt. This was so stupid!  
  
"You're paying me to play Go with you?"  
  
With a hopeful he laughed with a wide smile. "Yes, that was my intention."  
  
I shook my head. "You're a very strange man..."  
  
And I left after beating him in one game while he won the other two.  
  
Day two wasn't any better.   
  
I went along with his amusement partly because he was very funny. I wanted to understand why they saw him as such a threat. I, on the other hand, thought he was a bumbling idiot with a nice streak.  
  
We played chess today and while checkmating me, he poked me on the forehead.  
  
"You look too serious. Lighten up, brat."  
  
"The name is _Seki_." I said with an annoyed tone, trying to stay in character.  
  
But there was an endearment in the way he always called me 'brat'.  
  
"If I let my guard down, you'd have taken over the board much earlier, Akira." I tapped my fingers on the table and pouted a bit from losing.  
  
Taking the board away and putting it on the couch, he sat back down and looked at me from across the table. "Will this allow you to become more comfortable with me then?"  
  
I sighed out of frustration. "You ask too much of me."  
  
He countered with a serious face as he told me, "And you seem to ask too little of me."   
  
We sat there looking at one another, trying not to see past ourselves.  
  
Finally, he shook his head and said, "Let's go out to dinner."  
  
"It's too early," I told him as I looked at the clock. "It's only 6 o'clock."  
  
"I'm tired from the press conference today," he said to me as he got up to put on his jacket. "I'm starving."  
  
"Fine," I said as I got up.  
  
But as we were walking downtown, the clouds were gray and it was sprinkling a bit. I glanced at Akira as he had a sad look on his face. He was concentrating hard.  
  
And when I looked at the direction he was staring at, he walked up right to the kid that was leaning out his head from the alleyway. Akira kneeled down a bit and whispered to the child.  
  
The child just opened his eyes widely as he nodded.  
  
"I'll be right back," he said to me. "Just stay here."  
  
When he came back, he glanced from side to side and went into the alleyway. Then, he gave the bag to the kid. With a lift of his chin, he said, "Here."  
  
"Thank you, Onii-chan!" the boy said.  
  
"Wait," he said to the boy. "If you ever need me, keep this number."  
  
The little boy bowed and ran away from us.  
  
I blinked at him. Such kindness disgusted me and when we resumed talking he said, "Why do you have that look on your face, brat?"  
  
"Why did you do that?" I asked him nonchalantly.  
  
"Because they needed it." At that, he took out a cigarette from his pocket and lit it.  
  
I couldn't understand him.  
  
"What do you think of that, Seki-kun?" he asked me as he took a puff of his cigarette. "When you see homeless people, what do you think about?"  
  
"Some deserve it," I said gravely.  
  
"Yes, some deserve it, but there are some who just suffer the consequences." He glanced at me again. "People can't survive alone."  
  
"Then that just shows weakness."  
  
He took my head and stopped walking as he held me for a while as he closed his eyes. "I became a council person because I know there are people that don't know how to survive, Seki-kun. I used to be one of those people. I used to be that poor."  
  
I turned my head to him and it was then that I felt his touch made me warm inside.  
  
They were reaching somewhere I couldn't recognize.  
  
That's why they don't like you...  
  
That's why I'm also trying my hardest to reject you...   
  
--  
  
It was already day three before I knew it.  
  
We went out to eat dinner, but afterwards, we went to a bar.  
  
He was laughing at the way I leaned over the counter like an old man.   
  
"You have no finesse. I have to spiffen you up, brat." Patting my cheek, he began to drink his glass. "Not much to make you look sexier than you already do though."  
  
He smirked and I shook my head.  
  
And he was turning red from the drinking.  
  
I was very, very amused. How could the man flirt with such a straight face?  
  
When a girl tried to hit on me, he didn't say a word. In fact, he laughed at the whole thing.   
  
And it got me kind of mad.  
  
Why was he laughing in the first place? Did he think that I really wanted him?  
  
I came for an interesting job. A challenge to say the least.   
  
Nothing else.  
  
As soon as we got to the hotel room, he gave me a look. And he wouldn't talk to me.  
  
I was getting up to leave when he said, "You're really going to call her?"  
  
"Perhaps..." I said to be cruel.  
  
"Ah..." He went to the kitchen to get something to drink again.  
  
"I'll be going now." When I was about to turn around to leave, he grabbed my sleeve and kissed me.   
  
"Okay, you're free to leave."  
  
I left without looking back.  
  
"Two more days..." I whispered to myself as soon as I closed the door.  
  
A fleeting moment of weakness had me imagining that I almost didn't want them to come...  
  
The next day, I didn't want to come, but I did.   
  
I came with his favorite pastry: a sponge cake.  
  
I didn't understand why his tastes were so plain if he was so obsessive with 'beauty'.  
  
But as he was eating it, he would make me eat it and then steal it from me by playing with my mouth. I found it all the more amusing by protesting back. When I leaned back onto the couch, I went by the balcony door and looked out.  
  
One more day...  
  
I closed my eyes and touched the glass before me.  
  
He was so awkward when he stood in back of me. He didn't know how to do anything, but as he kissed my neck and unbuttoned my shirt while looking at our reflections on the glass, I didn't care.  
  
This was his charm...  
  
The energy that brought people to him...  
  
...even myself.  
  
He wasn't malicious, but he was formidable.  
  
He wasn't weak, but he wasn't intimidating.  
  
If he was honest, he should have took me the first time I came to this hotel room...  
  
No, Akira was just being Akira.  
  
And he took possession of my body as if he knew everything about me.  
  
I wondered about how in the past few days, how he'd even stolen little bits of myself without me knowing...  
  
That night, I wondered and thought about what I could have been.  
  
Who could I have lived with through this name Seki.  
  
A lie and a dream at the same time.  
  
--  
  
I didn't want to come. I killed a man, a woman, and a child before I came to his place. I was stained with blood and I didn't want to hide it.  
  
"You're late."  
  
I took off my jacket and answered, "Well, you gave me that job, didn't you?"  
  
"Stop being such a smart mouth." At that moment, he took a hold of my chin and gave me a harsh look.   
  
"I'll do as I please," I told him.  
  
"Fine." He let go of me and took out a cigarette. After all, he was the one that taught me how to do that.  
  
I looked at him as he stood next to the window, puffing away. I guess I was at that awkward age in which I, for once, gave into what my body wanted.  
  
Wrapping my arms around his waist, I began to unbutton his shirt. He gently pushed my hands away. "You come here late and then you talk back to me. Don't expect too much now, brat."  
  
He was an fascinating character. I think that was why I was so captivated by him.   
  
But his words contradicted his gentleness. He kept my hands in front of him and held them tightly.  
  
Later...  
  
It would be I who held onto his hands so tightly to the point I thought they would break. Digging my fingernails into the skin of his hands, I made him bleed as I shouted in pain.   
  
Bang, bang....  
  
The bed would push against the wall, but since he had rented a 'good' room, we didn't have worry about disturbing any of the neighbors. But he was perverse though.  
  
Leaving the windows open as he fucked me until I wanted him so badly.  
  
Never thought I could want someone's body so much that I went berserk.  
  
Well, nothing compares to that Sumeragi child...  
  
I wanted to believe in Akira.  
  
Make myself disappear for a long moment.  
  
"You're going to leave me as well, aren't you?" he told me as he took a deep breath while looking down at me.  
  
Always with a sharp tongue, I answered, "I was never yours in the first place."  
  
At that moment, as much as it was true, he kissed me to deny the truth so that I couldn't say any more about the matter. He didn't want to believe it.  
  
For a moment, I almost didn't want to either.  
  
Maybe this wasn't Seishirou Sakurazuka after all...  
  
I could live comfortably as an assassin and live under his care. Then, my life would be made.  
  
But I hated something like that.  
  
It was too easy.  
  
He began to push harder and harder to the point that I had to hold onto the bed railing to give me support to handle the impact...  
  
When we were finished, he reached over to nightstand and grabbed a pack of cigarettes. Lighting it, he took a puff, then he handed it over to me. Lying down, he grabbed my waist as I sat up smoking the rest of his cigarette.  
  
"When are you leaving?" he asked me as he grabbed my waist a bit tighter.  
  
He never questioned as to _why_ I left him and I liked it that way. I didn't want to deal with the small talk, but I couldn't understand if he was finally catching onto me.  
  
My usual excuse was that I had class the next day. That was _technically_ true.  
  
"I don't think I'll leave today," I told him.  
  
Akira's only response was to raise his eyebrow. It didn't seem to surprise him. He didn't look depressed nor happy over it. Days ago, he would have jumped at the opportunity. Poor love sick fool.  
  
Or at least, that's what I thought.  
  
It was probably only my selfishness imagining things.  
  
I shouldn't have gotten too involved in this job, but he was so persistent. He, like Ian, let a corpse like me see a glimpse of a dream.  
  
I knew now what was his magic. It wasn't omnyouji or charisma. It wasn't sincerity or honesty.  
  
He was a magnet that people seemed to adore. The way he lifted up his eyes or smiled.   
  
It was seduction mixed with integrity.  
  
Maybe that's what scared my clients.  
  
At that moment, I got up and began to put on my clothes.  
  
"I thought you were going to stay with me tonight," he said as he got up and put on his slacks.  
  
Glancing at him, I told him, "Go, Akira. Get away from here."  
  
"What the hell are you talking about, brat?" he began to chuckle as he lit another cigarette.   
  
"I'm telling you to go while I can't catch you," I told him as I looked away from him. Then, I went to the window and looked down at the barricade of bright lights below.  
  
"You're not making sense." He laughed as he put on his shirt.  
  
"Why aren't you dressing up? Go!" My tone was harsh and I was frustrated and angry at the same time.   
  
"Wherever you'll go, I'll follow you." At that moment, because I had my guard down, he came from behind and hugged me. Whispering into my ear, he said, "You'll have to kill me, Sakurazukamori-kun."  
  
My eyes opened wide.  
  
I didn't deny it, and nor did I protest against it.  
  
I want you to live, Akira...  
  
I found myself thinking about saving you...   
  
He shook his head as he grabbed me even more. "What do I have to pay? What do I have to do to get you out of this?"  
  
I stopped breathing...  
  
How you can you stop what's in my blood? I can't escape my fate. That's why I learned to manipulate it and laugh with cruelty as I walked in the valley of death.  
  
Tokyo was my playground and soon will be my grave.  
  
Sumeragi Subaru...  
  
...was growing older as we spoke...  
  
"You can't." I turned around and smiled at him a sincere grin. The most innocent that I had been and most vulnerable in all my life. "You can't do anything."  
  
At that moment, he grabbed my arm as I struck into his heart.   
  
I died all over again.  
  
He looked at me and smirked. Until the end, he was so beautiful...  
  
"I told you to leave," I told him as I looked into his eyes.  
  
"But I wanted you to live, brat." He then leaned up to kiss me on the lips.   
  
I told him with a gentle voice, "My name is Seishirou. Sakurazuka Seishirou."  
  
Remember me...  
  
Remember that much...  
  
He smiled. "At least you told me your name..."  
  
He finished, "...Sei-chan."  
  
I opened my eyes and blinked at him in shock.  
  
At that, he died and I held onto him for a long while.  
  
Matsui Seki...  
  
A regular vet student...  
  
Lover of Haruka Akira.  
  
I wouldn't have to kill anyone anymore...  
  
"My dream has died within you," I whispered into his ear while running my fingers through his hair.  
  
I can't ever live a normal life.  
  
Even when you offered it to me, you knew the moment you would, you would die because that could never happen.  
  
Never.  
  
And I couldn't die yet.  
  
I wouldn't let you kill my identity, Akira.  
  
I wasn't ashamed because of my mother and Ian. Even though you understood and wanted me despite everything, I wasn't going to change.  
  
I didn't want to change.  
  
This person, whomever resided in this decrepit soul, was me.  
  
Sakurazuka Seishirou.  
  
I didn't want to change.  
  
If I did, he wouldn't know me.  
  
And I wanted to meet him again.  
  
I wanted to meet the little boy with the sweet lips.  
  
I left him on the bed and kissed his lips as his skin became more and more pallid. It was very aesthetically pleasing to me.  
  
Yes, the Matsui Seki you know has died within you, Akira.  
  
He died with you today.  
  
--  
  
A day later, I glanced at the newspaper headline: "Haruka Akira found dead under a pile of sakura petals..." But I didn't want to read any more of it.  
  
"In some weird way, it's very artistic," a woman commented as she looked at the newspaper with her girl friend.  
  
I walked away and smiled as I passed them.  
  
Whispering to myself, I said to the wind, "I will be very upset at anyone who says I never cared for you..."   
  
I left him in a sea of red, red sakura petals scattered all over his body,  
  
As if he was just sleeping.  
  
Yes, we're both dreaming...  
  
Why is it that when people say they want the one they love the most to live, they sacrifice themselves to die in their place? Isn't it ironic?  
  
Out of both of their selfishness and overflowing affection,  
  
they both die at the same time when that moment comes?  
  
"I'm finally understanding, Ian," I said to myself as I let the newspaper fly away with the wind.  
  
I'm starting to understand what it means to be passionate...  
  
I passed by the alleyway where he had given the bag of food to the homeless child and I thought about what he said to me after he let go of my head.   
  
"Why...why the hell did you give me your card? Did you think I was some kind of prostitute?" I said with a hint of annoyance.  
  
"No." He shook his head as he gave me a loving smile. "I thought you were lost."  
  
With his boyish ways, he closed his eyes and smiled wider with a tinge of sorrow.   
  
"I thought you needed me," he finished.  
  
Passion didn't mean anything...  
  
Without the will to live.  
  
Without the will to protect.  
  
Even if it may be wrong.  
  
There's nothing you can believe in the world  
  
Except the things that you believe are true.  
  
Even if they are illusions.  
  
Being passionate meant going further than surviving in the world...  
  
Willing to die,  
  
Striving to live.  
  
You had to let go of yourself.  
  
Immersing yourself in hope and fear.  
  
Tsuzuku...  
  
--  
  
author's note: I do understand that Seishirou may seem out of character, but in my head, he isn't. Seishirou isn't good at manipulating people because it was a mere talent, I wanted him to be well-rounded. I wanted him to know happiness and I wanted him to feel sadness. Because if he didn't, he wouldn't have been the perfect one to execute the plan of hunting his prey Subaru.  
  
Seishirou is an assassin who not only kills his victims physically, he kills them thoroughly. Or at least, in my mind. He cannot be so good at what he does unless he's experienced it.  
  
I made a pun out of the 'red sea' because it refers to the sakura, but it also refers to a Bible story in which the Israelites were delivered from exile through the Red Sea. 


	5. Epilogue

Disclaimer: yui doesn't own tb, but she does own Shinta and any non-related TB characters throughout the fic. I don't own the song at the beginning for it is Donna Summer's "Mac Arthur Park".  
  
"I will take my life into my hands and I will use it   
  
I will win the worship in their eyes and I will lose it   
  
I will have the things that I desire and my passion flow   
  
Like rivers through the sky.   
  
Oh, and after all the loves in my life,   
  
After all the loves in my life,   
  
You'll still be the one   
  
And I'll ask myself why."  
  
rikoteki na yume (selfish dream)  
  
By miyamoto yui  
  
Epilogue - Watashi ni totte… (For me…)  
  
I'd never seen Subaru so flustered before.  
  
And because of it, some part of me felt that I had to do something about it.   
  
I had seen him embarrassed and I'd seen him smiling, but I'd never seen him so nervous to the point that he was about to freak out. It was amusing, but I couldn't help but feel strangely jealous that someone else was making my prey react so strongly, even stronger than my teasing.  
  
In the back of my mind, I thought, "I have to try harder."  
  
  
  
Hokuto was at a loss as to what to do with him, so she kept on patting his head as she sat in the back seat of my van. "Subaru, I understand why you're freaking out, but I'm sure he's fine."  
  
"That's my…my Shinta," he said as if he were hesitating to say any more on the subject.  
  
As for me, I knew it was part of my plan to have him completely trust me and then destroy him when I had him in my spider's web, but there was something about this boy that made me want to do something whenever he looked distressed. All I knew at the moment was that some part of me was hissing, and scolding the other part of me for being a fool and driving all the way to Kyoto.  
  
It wasn't that I disliked Shi-chan. No, I actually was quite fond of him because he looked like Subaru when he was little, when we made our bet. However, I couldn't help but think that there was something more that he made me remember.  
  
It was as if he were bringing back a lost memory with all its sweetness, but equally with all its expected pain.  
  
All in all, he was an interesting child, and if this was the feeling of affection, then that was the best that I could describe it. He was quiet, but his eyes were always searching for something.  
  
Most of the time, you could tell it was Subaru that the boy wanted.  
  
It rivaled that of my own want for Subaru. Truly amusing indeed…  
  
--  
  
While we were waiting in the van, Hokuto draped her hands over my shoulders and sighed. "That Subaru~! Always worrying me!"  
  
"Shouldn't you go in to see your grandmother too?" I said as I glanced back at her while patting her hands. "I take it you've not been here for a long time also?"  
  
Hokuto's genki expression betrayed her anguish. She sighed as she put her chin on my shoulder. She wouldn't even look at me. "Not today. Today's not a good day."  
  
"Then when would it be a good day, Hokuto-chan?" I questioned her, wondering at the same time if she was still uneasy about me being with them at their 'home base'.   
  
She closed her eyes. "It is never a good day."  
  
"Why is that?"  
  
Hokuto only became serious when she couldn't take something anymore. She was always fragile that way.  
  
I wondered why she trusted me so much despite all her verbal warnings, even when they were caked with knives pointed to my neck. I liked that part of her.  
  
"When you're the twin that the family doesn't need, you'll understand." She opened her eyes and tried her best to grin at me through her misery.   
  
"I'm sure that's not true," I reasoned, trying to comfort her.  
  
"Only Subaru needs me. That's what it all comes down to. That's why I don't really care for anyone else…" Then, she began to light up as if she just remembered something truly special. "But there's you and someone else."  
  
"Does Hokuto-chan have a boyfriend I don't know about? I don't think I like that." I chuckled as I gave her a sideglance. "If I'm exclusively Subaru's, then I'm automatically yours also. I don't like sharing with other people very much."  
  
Hokuto only smiled at me and her high-pitched laugh rang inside the walls of the van.  
  
I always enjoyed her strange way of laughing. It always made me think, "Why is she having so much fun? How?"  
  
I wanted to learn to laugh that way.  
  
"Subaru-kun sure is taking a long time," I commented as I looked at my watch.  
  
"Grandmother told him not to come, but he came anyway. If I didn't know any better, he's negotiating."   
  
I gave Hokuto a surprised face. "He'd actually take his cousin even though he has a cold?"  
  
Hokuto's smile became even more superior-looking. "You don't know what he'd do when it comes to Shi-chan. I'd say he's your rival in Subaru's affection."  
  
I knew I liked this girl. She read everything so well.  
  
The naïvete between the two twins was sucked all by Subaru and Hokuto, as the older sibling, was left to carry the double meanings to everything around them.  
  
"Yes, so I've experienced," I laughed to myself.   
  
"I gave Shi-chan his red strip of hair," Hokuto proudly announced.   
  
"So I've heard. Why'd you do that?"  
  
"So that he'd remember." For a moment, her eyes gave the impression of being subdued again.  
  
"Remember what?"  
  
Conveniently, before she could answer me, Subaru carried his cousin in a blanket towards us. With slightly red eyes after an obvious crying session, he came to the van and he switched seats with Hokuto. He was holding onto his cousin and bowed his head. "Thank you for waiting and I'm sorry I didn't say that I'd be bringing Shi-chan with me."  
  
"Don't worry about it," I told him as I looked at his green eyes through the rear-view mirror.  
  
Subaru smiled at me as Hokuto started patting the blanket over Shi-chan. "I haven't seen you in so long and you don't even hug or kiss me?"  
  
Shi-chan weakly smiled as he nodded his acknowledgement of her. "Su."  
  
I looked at the weak child through the rear-view window for a moment as I turned on the engine. I said nothing, but my chest felt so grave with burden.  
  
Those half-closed eyes looked so weak.  
  
The Subaru-kun I kissed so many years ago looked like that in his state of dreaming…  
  
That child always made me remember the Subaru of so long ago and made me react as if I was a teenager all over again, seeking those warm, damp lips to melt the coldness I developed inside of me.  
  
--  
  
When we got back to their apartment, I was carrying a bag of things that Hokuto said we needed for Shi-chan, with my recommendations of course.   
  
We were a funny scene. Hokuto opened the door and Subaru walked in with the bundle in his arms while rubbing his cousin's hair softly while saying, "It's all right. I'm here. Su's here."  
  
And then I came in like an overworked husband who had been made bellboy. I followed Hokuto to the kitchen as she set all the things on the counter in order to figure out what to do first.  
  
I headed over to Subaru's room.   
  
He had placed Shinta in his bed and the red blanket to one side. The childishness of Subaru was still with him, but some of it was also gone.   
  
Subaru was growing more and more, with or without me.  
  
It was something that I couldn't accept.  
  
"Hokuto-chan's preparing some porridge and medicine," I informed as I walked over next to him.  
  
I placed my hand on Subaru's shoulder as he looked up to me and patted my hand. Then, he held onto it. "You think I'm overreacting, aren't you?"  
  
"I'm just perplexed as to why you go so far for everything. Even though I understand the situation, it still amazes me how you act sometimes."  
  
"Only I know how he feels."  
  
Subaru had a subdued look that tried to hold something back from me. It was a look that never touched his face whenever he was with Hokuto, fearing of worrying her more than she did. The only thing I could do was stand there, trying my best to think of a way to make him laugh.  
  
The kid wasn't dead or in critical condition. He was just fatigued, but as to what, I did not know. All I could feel was that he was so exhausted by whatever he was doing that he couldn't handle the impact.  
  
Shi-chan blinked his eyes and looked at his surroundings, confused as to where he was. I began to smirk as a flash of Subaru waking up in my arms after I had put him to sleep came to mind.  
  
"Su," Shi-chan said as Subaru patted his head with a smile. "How are you feeling?"  
  
The child blinked at him, a grimace on his face as he reached out to hug my Subaru. Subaru complied to the hug and closed his eyes.  
  
I sat on the bed and said, "When you get better, we'll go out together."  
  
His profile was facing me. He grabbed onto Subaru's clothes with his fists and that single green eye looking at me smiled along with his lips. For a moment, he blinked at me and a glint of amber came out.  
  
I couldn't hide the shock on my face.  
  
Where had I seen this before? Why did I feel like I knew this kid as someone more than Subaru and Hokuto's cousin?  
  
When Hokuto came into the room, Shi-chan immediately turned his head towards Hokuto. "Supa!" he weakly announced.  
  
"Yo, kiddo!" she said as she took him from Subaru's embrace. Then she picked on his red strip of hair and smirked.   
  
"Supa?" I asked as I looked up to Hokuto. "I thought he only said Su?"  
  
"He's recently learned my name as Supa instead of Hokuto," Hokuto said as she looked at the pajama-clad little boy who seemed to be laughing at her wave of affection. They touched nose to nose.  
  
So this was what would happen if Hokuto ever had a child?  
  
And was this normal behavior for women towards children? I wondered…  
  
As we were heading to the kitchen, Subaru explained, "It's for 'sparkle'. Fits, doesn't it?"  
  
But if they never met, how did they know one another?  
  
Telepathy? But did Hokuto have that power?  
  
When we ate, Subaru started feeding Shi-chan, who was on Hokuto's lap. I watched them with a smiling face. I blurted out, "Was Subaru like this when he was little?"  
  
Subaru blinked at me for a moment and blushed. Hokuto immediately answered, "Never ate this much. Fussed so much about food, you can understand why he's so damn thin."  
  
I began to laugh as I poked Subaru on the shoulder. "How come you're not speaking up?"  
  
"No one really asks me those kind of questions." He continued to feed Shi-chan and himself.  
  
"So what did you do, Hokuto-chan?" I took a bite of my dish.  
  
"I got scolded a lot for running around." She laughed and said, "Remember, Subaru?"  
  
"She's actually proud about how many times she's eluded the guards." Subaru shook his head in mock shame. "Tsk. Tsk. Tsk."  
  
"My mother and I used to play a game," I told them as I took another bite of rice. "It was a form of hide and seek."  
  
"Oh?" Hokuto said as she looked at me with curious eyes.   
  
"We used to run all over the parks and I hid while she searched for me. Then, we would reverse roles when she found me." I looked down at my plate with a nostalgic smile. "I never got tired of that game."  
  
Loudly, she laughed while patting my shoulder. "That's good practice for chasing Subaru here."  
  
Subaru looked up to his sister's eyes. He turned even more red. "Okay, take this from my point of view okay?"  
  
Leaning towards Shinta, he said, "Give me a moment."  
  
He turned to me after putting his chopsticks down. At that moment, as crimson as ever, he pulled on my collar with one hand. Then, he looked into my eyes and turned towards Hokuto and said, "Satisfied?"  
  
I couldn't help but smirk while Hokuto laughed with a comment of, "We're finally getting somewhere!"  
  
If only I had some chocolate on me…  
  
Shi-chan clapped his hands together.  
  
Subaru patted the kid's head. "Don't support them."  
  
Then, Subaru let go as he continued to eat with a smile on his face. "Can't have you guys win all the time."  
  
As we were laughing and talking, I looked at all three of them and wondered how long this would last. Was I becoming too attached to my prey?  
  
That was a definite yes since the first time we met, but I didn't think I could get this involved.  
  
That was your fault, Ian.  
  
But some part of me was relieved. Was this what it meant to be 'normal'?  
  
They were doing this to me. They were making me believe that this vet was who I truly was.  
  
I wasn't an assassin at all. That was someone else with the same name.  
  
But I couldn't do that at all. This wasn't for me, and yet, I was enjoying it.  
  
There were many things I had yet to learn…  
  
While Subaru and Hokuto were preparing to go to sleep, I took the book that Subaru gave me to me. I looked at it as I sat on the bed. Shi-chan immediately sat in my lap and looked up while pointed at the book. "Sei-chan?"  
  
I looked down at him and smiled.  
  
"I've never really taken care of kids before…" I started to say and chuckled at the innocence that surfaced from deep inside of me.  
  
For a moment, I felt that I truly understood my mother. How all personalities of assassin, mother and woman could live inside of her.  
  
Shi-chan just tugged on my shirt as he coughed. I rubbed his back and then opened up the book to start reading. "Mukashi mukashi…"  
  
I kept on reading and I got really into it, but then that feeling came back to me.  
  
This child looked like Subaru…  
  
…but I didn't like him because of that. I felt that he was tugging at me as if he knew something that I didn't. That he could see through me.  
  
That I was only a person he got along with.  
  
Not as Seishirou, not as the assassin…I wondered what this meant.  
  
Shi-chan then began to hug me as his eyes were drooping a bit.   
  
As I looked into that sweet face, I questioned, "Could someone truly love you unconditionally?"  
  
Subaru and Hokuto came in and we began to read parts of the book. When Hokuto took the book, she acted it out because she knew the story too well. Subaru would hold Shi-chan as I had done, but they would also play a game as they read the book.  
  
Afterwards, we put Shi-chan to sleep.   
  
"Good night, kid," I said as I touched his hair. He nodded sleepily.  
  
Subaru kissed him on the forehead and said, "Sweet dreams."  
  
Hokuto wanted to spend some time with him so she hugged him as he fell asleep.   
  
"Okay, you guys. I'll take care of it from here," she whispered to us. Then, as we were leaving, we heard her say, "I remember when Subaru and me were like you. We would drive grandmother crazy because we…"  
  
When we were in the kitchen, I said, "I kind of want to hear Hokuto-chan's story."  
  
I wanted to know more about my prey. I wanted to break you completely, but I also wanted to be the only one who knew you more than you knew yourself, Subaru…  
  
Subaru drank a glass of water. With a shy smile on his face, he tilted his head and said, "I want to know more about you, Seishirou-san."  
  
I smirked and immediately teased, "So forward."  
  
He coughed as his face turned red while he turned away from me. "I think I deserve that much. Only this much, Seishirou-san."  
  
As he put the cup in the sink, he was silent. He still had his back towards me as he kept his hands on the rim of the sink.  
  
"All right," I found myself saying.  
  
That lonely tone of his…  
  
Whenever he pleaded with me, I never could say no to him. It called to me as if he had killed a hundred times worse than my best work.  
  
Subaru looked in my direction and smiled widely. "Really?"  
  
He came up to me and patted my hands. "You're not lying, are you?"  
  
Those eyes were shining up at me as they had done so many years ago. So full of hope at seeing through the darkness…So full of fear of the truth…  
  
Quietly, I softly smiled and nodded my head.  
  
But how was I supposed to describe anything? What could I tell him about myself?  
  
After all this, I knew he would hate me, but I would enjoy my company with all of them, especially him.   
  
You're going to become my ultimate sacrifice, but also my most prized possession.  
  
My greatest masterpiece.  
  
"I'll tell Hokuto-chan we're going out for a walk," he said as he hugged me with his arms over my neck.   
  
Then, he let go and I saw a smile on his face.  
  
For a moment, it made my heart skip a beat.  
  
But the more and more I brought him closer to me, the deeper the invisible scar inside both of us would become…  
  
--  
  
We ended up walking to park that seemed as if it had been abandoned with all the silence around us. Like an old couple, we ended up sitting on a bench overlooking a lake.  
  
"How can you take care of animals if you're supposed to be an onmyouji user, Subaru-kun?" I asked as I leaned back and looked at the sky above us.  
  
"I'll make it work," he said with a determined tone.  
  
"You'll have to sacrifice one thing," I told him as I got up and leaned my arms on the railing.  
  
"Why?" he asked with confusion in his voice.   
  
I took a stone from the ground and threw it. It made ripples and I sighed.  
  
I didn't know how to advise him.  
  
Wasn't I in the same position?  
  
"There are some things you can't fight against."  
  
It wasn't much of a piece of advice, but it was all that I could say at the moment. Mother, Ian, Akira…  
  
"I have to, Seishirou-san," Subaru said with a little more courage.   
  
He probably didn't know what was up ahead, but he could feel it with his whole being. He was trying his best to defy it.  
  
Maybe you will, Subaru…  
  
"My mother was forced to carry on the family business even though she didn't feel up to it. After all, she was the first female to do it." I sighed as I recalled the little tidbits that my mother told me in different parts of my life. "She didn't tell me very much. I had to piece everything as much as possible."  
  
I glanced back to find Subaru nodding solemnly in agreement and understanding. "The same for mine."  
  
I didn't know if I should have understood that his mom was the female heir or was she as secretive as mine. Maybe it was both.  
  
"My mother was odd, some would like to say, but I don't believe any of it. I felt that she did the best that she could."  
  
"What happened to your father?" Subaru looked at me curiously as he said, "I know mine had to travel from place to place. Then, he died because of an accident."  
  
"My mother told me he died because of love," I simply said. "The one you love the most is the one you'll sacrifice. I didn't understand and I still don't understand this, but I continue to try to understand this answer. All I want to ask her is, 'What? Why do you have to kill something in order to attain something else? Even at the cost of your life?'"  
  
Then, I looked away, "I don't believe in things like life or death. I don't think there's a difference between anything, just what we make them out to be."  
  
"I think that's true, Seishirou-san," Subaru said as he got up and stood next to me. "And maybe that's the answer."  
  
"What?" I asked, a bit lost. I was a bit comforted by the fact that we could talk like this and that I didn't have to be perfect.  
  
I was only myself, whomever that was.  
  
"Until you get over the obstacle, you won't know what you'll get. Good or bad, it's worth pursuing if you feel it's worth the effort." Subaru smiled as he leaned his head on my shoulder.  
  
I slowly nodded as I looked at him silently.  
  
I knew it…  
  
I took a deep breath and began to smile in a way that I had never felt before. It felt light and not forced at all. It wasn't a smirk either.  
  
I knew you knew the answer…  
  
After all these years, I knew I just had to wait…  
  
I didn't know why it had to be you, but I knew it had to be you to give me this response that pieced things together.  
  
"I wonder…." I said with a grave tone. "I always wondered if I never was alive, what would have happened to my mother."  
  
I didn't know why I was going to tell him this of all things, but this was what came out of my mouth. It was fate, wasn't it? As always.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"You see, Subaru-kun," I started to explain with a knot building inside of my throat. I cleared my throat and then continued, "I was born with a twin brother. His name was Joshua. They named him after a tree of some sort. He was my older brother, but he died before me.  
  
"Mother didn't know what to do about this. She thought it was the curse of what we did to survive in this world. And so, I was named Seishirou with both of the characters for 'life' and 'death' in my name.   
  
"Then, shortly after my father died. She went crazy, as others would like to say. When you lose almost all that's precious to you, wouldn't you go nuts too? And then, the little that you have left, you keep so close to your heart that you unconsciously want to kill it out of fear and selfishness. "Only I understood her twisted logic. Things made perfect sense when she explained them to me. But then came along this kid to mess up my life.'"  
  
I leaned my head over Subaru's.   
  
I didn't know if he understood or not, but I didn't care. He would with time.   
  
Like all the things in my life, they would make sense in the end and I would figure out its meaning later…  
  
"Seishirou-san…" Subaru said as he sighed while pushing his head onto my shoulder.  
  
At that moment, I turned him towards me and I looked at him straight in the eye. And I knew that no matter what the consequences this would bring, I would tell him.   
  
"Do you know who I really am, Subaru-kun? I pretend I let you know, but I don't even know sometimes."   
  
"I…I don't understand…" he said as he looked at me with confused eyes.  
  
I then took off my glasses. "Tell me what do you see."  
  
With a firm answer, he said to me, "I see Seishirou-san."  
  
"Don't you remember me?" I asked him as he looked at me with eyes ever more bewildered.  
  
"Remember you?"   
  
My lips closed as I looked at him. I felt the same as I did on that same day in Ueno Park when he asked me about the people buried under the sakura tree. "Don't they feel pain?" he asked me.  
  
At that moment, the same thing ran through my head, "Yes, they do, but they'll never get to admit it."  
  
"You have to kill me to have me," I said in a joke that held nothing but the truth.  
  
He gave me a worried expression that was trying to comprehend everything all at once.  
  
"You seem to misinterpret me, Subaru."  
  
He shook his head.   
  
With an honest smile, I told him, "The one who saves usually wants to be saved."  
  
"I don't want to be saved," Subaru replied to me.  
  
"Then let me become your sin." I smirked at him the same way as I did when we were much younger.  
  
Then, a spark of recollection came to his face, but before he could answer me, I kissed him to put him back to sleep.   
  
It was sweeter than I had ever expected and far surpassed my imagination…  
  
---  
  
People tell you that you see your life flash before your eyes when you die. Maybe I'll never be like other people. Never was and never will be…  
  
But this was the memory that came to me at the moment you pushed your hand through me. It was at that moment I understood everyone and everything around me.  
  
Why things had to be the way they were…  
  
As I looked up to Subaru's face and explained to him about the curse of his sister, I now knew why I always looked for him. I didn't know who I was and so I meandered through this godforsaken city trying to find that person, but it all came back to you, Subaru.   
  
With this thought, I smiled as widely as I could, with all the pain and happiness I kept deep inside of me. It was the same smile I gave him when I was the vet he innocently dated so many years ago.  
  
He gave me a shocked look as if he never expected to ever see this again.  
  
"You are…" I leaned up to his ear and whispered to him almost as if I could chuckle, "…always the same."  
  
You were always strong, Subaru, that's why I picked you. I always felt that I looked outside of myself whenever I didn't want to feel something, that it happened to someone else and not me.  
  
But I was wrong.  
  
Today, I didn't turn away from the pain or the happiness…  
  
My life was going as I felt the blood draining from me. I felt colder and colder. Then, I thought of myself in Ueno Park just a few days ago when I touched the trunk of the sakura tree we met under…  
  
I met a little boy.  
  
And I knew he'd be my undoing.  
  
Let's live in delusion, you and me.  
  
We laugh and smile at one another to find that  
  
We're closer than we think.  
  
I want to touch you,  
  
To make love to you,  
  
Even if it's against both our wills.  
  
Pouring myself out to you  
  
I drink in your pain.  
  
I understand you like no other.  
  
Yet we spin 'round and 'round  
  
In the never-ending world.  
  
What is reality?  
  
Is it where I live in my own body with my own mind?  
  
Or is it within your deep, green eyes?  
  
And forgetting that I could die.  
  
Believing that I'd live through anything?  
  
A flash of the future  
  
Went through my head again.  
  
Green, green eyes looking through me  
  
As he grabbed my red, bleeding heart.  
  
I bled dry…  
  
…because I couldn't give him anymore of myself.  
  
I have to protect you  
  
By killing myself.  
  
Or else I'd have to kill you.  
  
Subaru held me tightly and whispered softly to my ear before I died,   
  
"I found you, Seishirou-san. I finally found you."  
  
I smiled as everything became so hazy once more...  
  
I never told you why I wanted you so much…  
  
…I wanted you to cry for me too, like the others buried under the sakura tree...   
  
…to tell me with that single gesture that I was worth something in this damn world…  
  
Owarimashita. (It was finished.)  
  
--  
  
Author's note: * sniff, sniff * Ack, I can't seem to stop crying.  
  
First of all, this chapter is for Jamie-san. Sorry you had to wait a long time for your Su and Sei fic, but I thought of it really well. (I hope that you enjoyed the whole fic, especially this part dedicated to you.)  
  
Yes, as ridiculous as it may seem, it did take me a month and a half to finish this fic. It is because of my struggle to find the song I wanted in the beginning to set the tone. I had to figure out a new perspective that I wanted to present for Seishirou's and Subaru's relationship. These two things alone were hard to push through and analyze because I've done Su and Sei so much that it gets harder and harder for me to write about them.  
  
This was the hardest chapter to do because it was the one that was supposed to bring everything together. Not only that, trying to find a new perspective for this couple has become difficult for me. I am not new to writing about Seishirou and Subaru, so it is increasingly hard to produce a different angle each time.  
  
I thought about writing about the 'forgotten years' for Subaru and Seishirou because that's what isn't usually talked about. The years after Subaru has been cursed or when Hokuto ( * sniff, sniff *) dies. I wanted nothing, absolute NOTHING to do with Seishirou's death because I've done it so many times.  
  
What's more is that I went through various drafts (3-5) for this chapter and usually I am not that indecisive about what I am going to do. All in all, I wanted a solid ending that would tie everything together.  
  
I chose this after much contemplation (I think, more than 10 songs?) because I felt that it was the best that described Seishirou and Subaru towards one another. Usually, the song at the beginning's supposed to describe the 'add'l' character, but this time, it's indistinguishable.  
  
As for why I made this only five parts, I wanted it to symbolize Subaru's pentagram. (Yes, I did a LOT of thinking to the last detail because I love them SO much!)  
  
For the first chapter, I wanted to explain his mother and his relationship with her. I wanted to bring out that from her, his dual nature of being sweet and dangerous were what his mother instilled.   
  
For the second chapter, I wanted him to go beyond his mother and help be molded by Ian. From this character, I wanted Seishirou to question and challenge himself as to why he has to learn to feel in order to become truly numb (and vice versa) inside.  
  
Then, for the third chapter, I wanted Seishirou to feel vulnerable next to someone. Here, Seishirou wants to step out of his life and wants to be protected..  
  
Then, for the last chapter, I had to put it all together. The images of Seishirou that are presented in the manga, in this fic, and the way he acts are all different people, but all come together when he dies. He is weak and strong at the same time.  
  
The Seishirou I tried to produce was within a different style of writing, a rather experimental one. It was a series of one-shoters all put into one. Each different, yet dependent and independent at the same time. Also, the changes in POVs (first and third person) were to represent his struggle between feeling human and non-human. Seishirou looks at himself both as a being with and without feelings. He's 'stepping outside of himself' sometimes.   
  
Most of all, I decided not to answer too many questions because the question of Seishirou's character and life should always be kept mysterious. That's what's I find most intriguing and sexy about him.  
  
Thank you very much for reading this piece. I know that it isn't an easy read because of the changes in perspective as well as all the 'new' characters that I introduced in order to add depth to our darling assassin's character.   
  
I still stand firm that if he didn't go through anything, I don't think he would have been his best. He wasn't born that way, he had to grow that way. I hope that my weird and convoluted way of explaining that was sufficient. Seishirou is truly one of the hardest characters I write for, but I love him for that, masochist that I am.  
  
Until next fic…  
  
Thanks for your encouragement!  
  
Especially, thank you to my beta reader Rei-chan who is always patient with this baka. And to you, my muse and Winnie, who always give me inspiration and new perspectives about Su and Sei. 


End file.
